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i so totally hear you there

I saw it on a g/f's fb while I was picking up my 8 yr old daughter from school; it's just sickening. There can be no serious sane reason for anyone to go off at a school!!!! My heart is breaking for the poor parents that are getting the worst, most gutt renching news a parent could ever get. May God give you all strength through this horrible time

I often wonder

if publicizing these tragedies does more harm than good, if it motivates those with an incomprehensible desire for the attention that results from a so-called 'blaze of glory' finish. I guess it's news but really, what's the benefit to the public of trumpeting it, especially those outside the local area?

To some extent, yes, the attention given to the killers is a bad thing

The challenge is how to keep weapons out of the hands of crazy people. That's not an easy puzzle to solve.

I believe one important factor here is violent video games. Just as the Sept 11 hijackers used flight sim software to help them learn to fly, all the incredibly realistic first-person-shooter games are no different.

If there is ONE thing I would hope that comes from this, it would be to have a grown-up discussion about guns in our society.

The kneejerk reaction is to ban everything, but we ban drugs, and we banned alcohol...how did those things work out?

When cars were first invented, on a percentage basis, fatalities were very high. So with driver training, licensing, and technical improvements, this problem was addressed. There are many more cars today and far fewer fatalities, as a percentage of the number of drivers and registered vehicles.

If America can put a remote-control rover on Mars, surely we can all figure this out....

Rovers on Mars are easy.

There's almost no politics involved. No one asks the rover's position on abortion, or wants to know if returning capsule has immigration paperwork.

As you noted, complete bans have been ineffective. That doesn't mean it couldn't be done, just that we've never managed anything similar in the past. Other countries obviously do it, but there are the questions of size of the US, existing stock and possessions, etc.

However, I don't think violent video games have much of an effect. They're just the latest in a long string of boogie men going back through violent movies, televised wrestling, comic books, etc. In Salem they though playing witch was a sure fire path to ... sure fire. I imagine someone's parents berated him for peeking through Coliseum walls at gladiatorial games.

Well since the rover does not have to come back

I live in a part of the country where young boys are really 'into' guns. They play 'airsoft' with full camo gear, using VERY realistic weapons that shoot pellets in full auto mode (drives the dog nuts).

These same kids spend hours playing 'Call of Duty' as well as 'Metro' and whole host of hyper-realistic FPS (first-person-shooter) games. These are not like duck-hunt on Nintendo, these are 3D 'go for the headshot' simulations that give you a small taste of the adrenaline rush that (I imagine) you would have in an actual combat situation.

For ANY of these kids, if you put a locked and loaded MP5 in their hands, other than the heft of the weapon, they would be completely at ease and, maybe I'm reaching a bit here, if hopped up on drugs or a kid with mental issues could blur the play world with the real world.

Driving can't really be used here.

The reason there are fewer fatalities these days is 99.999999999% due to the fact that cars absorb impact and have airbags that reduce the force from inertia on occupants. Even 50 years ago, peopl ewere thrown about like ragdolls in an accident. Sure grandpa loved his old Dodge, "solid and stable, not like these new things that just crumple and collapse when hit!"

However, I'd MUCH rather be in a car that folds up like an accordion during an accident than one that doesn't. Engineering saved lives, not licencing.

That's an odd crash test.

It's offset, driver's fender to driver's fender. If it was a true head on, the Chevy would have fared much better I think. Then there's side impact which would have been different too. The Chrysler seems to have crumpled well too but is designed to absorb and redirect impact that the cabin doesn't crumple and the engine is pushed down to the ground instead of into the passenger compartment. The Chevy just trashed a fender and then the A pillars were cut in half due to rigid construction, that alone would be enough impact to do in any occupants. It really shows how far we have come though, cars today are a million times safer than those before, I've been saved TWICE from a sure death accident due to specific car construction that was just introduce the year I bought the car. I still love my old muscle cars though.

as a matter of interest, how often do cars hit head on half and half

like that. Over the years I've seen many crashed cars and they're usually full head on with the centre of both bonnets very close to each other, or the part ons are just the headlight corners clipped, or straight into an inanimate object, or full into the rear, or into the side or corner from the side. Except in the US test crashes like that video I've never seen two cars hit with the full quarter head on like that.

On another aspect, my father's mid/late 1960s Toyota Crown was designed so that in a series impact with the front of the car the engine dropped out the bottom and the main body for the car rode up and over that while the engine compartment crumpled while absorbing energy. I've looked at a few modern cars of the same size and there's no way the engine can drop out the bottom and the frame etc isn't strong enough to absorb much impact energy at all due to teh cheaper way many are made out of shells welded together.

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